Chameleon Chaos

  Books in the

  S.W.I.T.C.H. series

  #1 Spider Stampede

  #2 Fly Frenzy

  #3 Grasshopper Glitch

  #4 Ant Attack

  #5 Crane Fly Crash

  #6 Beetle Blast

  #7 Frog Freakout

  #8 Newt Nemesis

  #9 Lizard Loopy

  #10 Chameleon Chaos

  #11 Turtle Terror

  #12 Gecko Gladiator

  #13 Anaconda Adventure

  #14 Alligator Action

  Text © Ali Sparkes 2012

  Illustrations © Ross Collins 2012

  “SWITCH: Chameleon Chaos” was originally published in English in 2012

  This edition is published by an arrangement with Oxford University Press.

  Copyright © 2014 by Darby Creek

  All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

  Darby Creek

  A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  241 First Avenue North

  Minneapolis, MN 55401 U.S.A.

  For reading levels and more invormation, look up this title at

  www.lernerbooks.com.

  Main body text set in ITC Goudy Sans Std. 14/19.

  Typeface provided by Monotype Typography.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Sparkes, Ali.

  Chameleon chaos / by Ali Sparkes ; illustrated by Ross Collins.

  pages cm. — (S.W.I.T.C.H. ; #10)

  Summary: Twins Josh and Danny continue following clues leading them to marbles filled with scientific code, despite the fact that mad scientist Petty Potts’ REPTOSWITCH formula is having some very strange side-effects.

  ISBN 978–1–4677–2113–4 (lib. bdg. : alk. paper)

  ISBN 978–1–4677–2416–6 (eBook)

  [1. Ciphers—Fiction. 2. Chameleons—Fiction. 3. Twins—Fiction.

  4. Science fiction.] I. Collins, Ross, illustrator. II. Title.

  PZ7.S73712Ch 2014

  [Fic]—dc23

  2013019713

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1 – SB – 12/31/13

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-2416-6 (pdf)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-4022-7 (ePub)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-4021-0 (mobi)

  For Olivia and Macie

  With grateful thanks to

  John Buckley and Tony Gent of

  Amphibian and Reptile Conservation

  for their hot-blooded guidance on

  S.W.I.T.C.H.’s cold-blooded reptile heroes

  Framed

  C Phase

  Surprise!!!

  Slowpokes

  Fig Role

  A Bit Ropey

  Come on, Chameleon …

  Head Start

  Boy-eleon

  A Licky Situation

  Bricking It

  Top Secret!

  Glossary

  Recommended Reading

  As he hung by his feet from the bars, Josh reflected that this was not a good day.

  His school shoes were laced firmly to the bridge of the climbing structure. His laces would probably snap if he relaxed his feet out of their rigid hook-shape and slid off the metal rung—but this could only lead to another problem. There was a three-foot drop below him. And it was a soft landing. A soft, muddy landing.

  A week of rain had turned the whole playground into a swamp. The caretaker had even put cones and orange tape up around the climbing structure to stop anyone from getting onto it. When Josh finally staggered into class looking like a mud monster, the teachers would be in no doubt that he’d broken the rules and gone onto the climbing structure. He’d be in a lot of trouble, even though it wasn’t his fault.

  He had tried to swing himself up and get an arm through the bars so he could untie his shoes with his spare hand—but he couldn’t manage it. He just wasn’t good at being upside down—and the longer he hung here, the more his head threatened to explode. He felt as if his eyeballs were getting bigger with every passing minute.

  No. On average, this was not a good day. Josh really needed help. He really needed Danny, his twin brother. But as everyone had now gone back inside, it didn’t look as though anyone would be coming by soon.

  His feet were beginning to shake horribly now. Josh called “Help!” a few times. But nobody came. It really looked as if he was going to end the afternoon looking like a hippo.

  He wrapped his arms around his head. He bunched up his eyes. He was going to have to drop and snap the laces. His feet just couldn’t stay like this …

  “Josh? What on earth are you doing, you peculiar child?”

  “Gah!” grunted Josh. His eyes pinged open again, and he saw the bristly upside-down chin of Petty Potts just inches from his face.

  “Getmyleeegs!” he gurgled. “Quiiick! I’m going to—gah!”

  SLIP.

  SNAP.

  DOOF.

  Josh found himself on the ground, gasping and gurgling as his blood-filled brain spun and his vision wavered. On the bright side, he seemed to have avoided the worst of the mud. He realized Petty Potts had grabbed him just as his laces broke. This turned his fall from a straight drop to a sudden slither. His pants were a bit muddy, but there were only a couple of splotches on his school shirt.

  Petty crouched down and peered at him through her thick lenses. She scratched her wiry thatch of gray hair. “Are you training for the Olympics?” she enquired.

  “No!” huffed Josh, carefully getting up onto his elbows. His head swooshed about as the blood in it started to get back to other locations in his body. “Not unless there’s a medal for getting stupidly in the way of even stupider school bullies. I’d probably get gold for that!”

  “Oh dear,” Petty said, helping him to his feet. “Who was it?”

  Josh shook his head and screwed up his eyes again.

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about snitching to me, do you?” Petty said. “I’m not your teacher. I’m just your kindly next-door neighbor.”

  “Kindly?” spluttered Josh. He could think of a lot of words to describe Petty Potts—grumpy, eccentric, genius, amazing, idiotic, and dangerous were the first ones that came to mind. But she had just saved him from a bath of sticky brown goo and a severe yelling-at back in class.

  He sighed. “Billy Sutter and Jason Bilk,” he muttered.

  “Aaaah,” Petty said, as if she had a clue whom he was talking about.

  “They were just about to commit mass anticide,” Josh explained. “They were heading for my ant farm that I set up for the class—with a bottle of boiling hot water! They were going to boil 254 defenseless ants alive! I had to throw my lunch at them to stop them.”

  “Aaaah,” Petty said again, but more sympathetically this time. She knew that Josh was nuts about creepy-crawlies—and all kinds of wildlife. She also knew that he would feel extra sensitive about protecting the ants, because not that long ago, she’d turned him into one. “And for this act of mercy, you were tied upside down to the climbing structure.”

  “Only after the swirly,” Josh sighed. His short blond hair was still a bit wet from the flushing and still smelled of toilet cleaner. “And the wedgie.” He tugged self-consciously at his trousers and felt the material give a bit.

  “Want me to S.W.I.T.C.H. them into ants so you can stomp on them?” Petty offered.

  Josh looked at her, his head to one side and his eyes narrowed. It was a good thing she didn’t know who Bi
lly Sutter and Jason Bilk were, because he wouldn’t put it past her to S.W.I.T.C.H. them. Petty might look like a nice old lady, but she was actually a brilliant scientist with a secret underground laboratory beneath her garden shed, where she worked on her S.W.I.T.C.H. project. Over the summer, since he and Danny had first stumbled upon her secret, Petty had recruited them to help her—whether they liked it or not. Back then they knew nothing about Petty’s S.W.I.T.C.H. sprays.

  Her BUGSWITCH spray could hijack your cells and turn you into an insect or a spider. And her AMPHISWITCH spray could turn you into an amphibian. And, after he and Danny had helped her find the lost formula to REPTOSWITCH, Petty now had a S.W.I.T.C.H. spray to turn them into reptiles too.

  “Well?” Petty was prodding his shoulder. “Shall I S.W.I.T.C.H. them into ants? I might even have that spray on me …” And she started patting the pockets of her big, slightly grubby overcoat.

  “No, Petty! Don’t even think about it!” warned Josh. “And what are you doing here anyway? Why are you at our school?” He felt very uneasy. Petty had a habit of showing up in their everyday lives … and it usually led to some kind of S.W.I.T.C.H.-related danger.

  “I was just passing when I saw you, that’s all,” Petty said. “I came in at the gate—your school security is so lax—and popped in to find out what you were up to. Would you rather I hadn’t? Would you like to be back up on the bars?”

  “Sorry—no,” Josh mumbled. “And thanks … really. But … oh, heck—I’ve got to get back into class. I’ll be in such trouble!”

  “Run along then, run along,” chirruped Petty. “And bring Danny with you to see me after school. I think it’s time we went to C Phase of REPTOSWITCH.”

  “C Phase?” Josh called back as he ran toward the low red brick building. He felt a lurch of excitement. He and Danny had been lizards already, and although—once again—they’d nearly gotten themselves eaten, it had still been amazing. He couldn’t wait to have another go. They would be more careful with C Phase … whatever it was.

  Petty tapped her nose and winked elaborately. “C Phase!” she called after him. “Find out after school!”

  “Josh! Where on earth have you been?” demanded Miss Mellor when he arrived in the classroom. Twenty-seven pairs of eyes turned to stare at him. These included the eyes of Danny, who was making a “What the heck?!!” face—and of Billy Sutter and of Jason Bilk, who were making “Tell and your life is OVER” faces.

  “Got stuck in the toilet,” Josh said. Several of the girls giggled.

  “So I see,” Miss Mellor said. “Maybe next time, before you come back to class, you might think about pulling up your trousers first.”

  Josh stared down at his legs and saw, to his horror, that his energetic tug to undo Billy and Jason’s gift of a wedgie had gone too far. A button on his trousers had pinged off. And the panicked running down the corridor had made the zipper give way. And now, even as his eyes bulged in disbelief, his muddy gray trousers were sliding down past his knees.

  Josh felt himself go scarlet all over as the whole class collapsed into shrieks of laughter and catcalls. Danny buried his face in his hands. And even Miss Mellor was pressing her mouth shut tight, trying to look as if she wasn’t rupturing herself laughing too.

  Josh groaned as he hitched his trousers up and wished he could just blend into the wall and disappear.

  “SUTTER! I’m gonna spread you like BUTTER!” Danny yelled. “BILK, I’m gonna spill you like MILK! You’ve just asked for DOUBLE TROUBLE.”

  “Well … thanks, Danny,” Josh said. “It’s nice of you to threaten my enemies for me—in poem format. I like the dairy theme, too. It’d be even more impressive if they were here.”

  Danny glanced around. The only scare he’d caused was to a passing cat, which shrank away from him on the top of a wall as they walked down their road after school. “I’m just warming up,” he said. “I will tell them that tomorrow. You don’t think I’d let them get away with giving you a swirly and a wedgie and then tying you upside-down to a climbing structure by your shoelaces, do you?”

  Josh shuddered. All of that was pretty bad—but the trousers bit at the end had been worse. Billy Sutter and Jason Bilk had been crying with laughter—the whole class had. He had paid dearly for defending the ant colony. Very dearly.

  “Thanks, Danny,” he mumbled. “But the best thing we can do is to forget it. I’ll just keep my head down and try not to get noticed for a few days.”

  “You’re kidding! We’ve got to get revenge!” spluttered Danny. His spiky blond hair seemed to bristle with fury. “It’s a matter of honor!”

  “Revenge,” sighed Josh. “Danny—have you noticed the size of Billy Sutter and Jason Bilk this term? They’re like escapees from one of your computer games! They’ve got fists like sledgehammers. And they nearly killed you in the summer term, remember? They nearly stamped you to death!”

  “Yeah … true …” admitted Danny. “But I was a grasshopper at the time.”

  “That’s not the point,” Josh said. “They’re crazy and dangerous. We need to keep away from them.”

  “Yoooo-hooo!” A familiar voiced trilled out through the warm afternoon air. “Jo–osh! Danneee!”

  Danny grinned at Josh. “I know what will take your mind off Sutter and Bilk,” he said, as Petty Potts ambled down her front path toward them.

  “Aaah, yes.” Josh smiled. “C Phase!”

  Petty led them down the side passage into her back garden, which was possibly more overgrown than they’d ever seen it. Over the summer it had filled with weeds, which had grown so high they now had to pick their way through a roughly beaten tunnel Petty had made.

  “Don’t you ever mow your lawn?” asked Josh as he got hit in the face by a lively thistle.

  “What on earth for?” called back Petty. “I don’t want any spies being able to see into my garden and my shed. And anyway, Josh, I would have thought you’d approve—my garden is a perfect haven for wildlife.”

  This was confirmed by a shriek from Danny as a cricket jumped out of the thicket onto his shoulder. “GETITOFFMEEEE,” he yelped. And Josh turned and collected the minibeast from him. He was well used to Danny’s heebie-jeebies about creepy-crawlies. It didn’t seem to matter how often Danny had been S.W.I.T.C.H.ed into a creepy-crawly himself. They still freaked him out.

  “It’s a beauty,” Josh murmured, peering into his cupped hands at the big, bright green cricket. “A Great Green Bush Cricket. They love this kind of tall weedy garden. Look at those legs! Remember how brilliant it felt when we had legs like that?” He let the creature jump back into the weeds, gazing after it with fascination. “You know, when we were grasshoppers that time …?”

  Danny was still shuddering and checking his shoulders for other insects when they arrived at the shed door behind Petty. “Forget insects!” He grinned as Petty walked through the very ordinary-looking shed and pulled back a bit of old sheet at the far wall. “We’re up to reptiles now!”

  Petty turned and smiled at them. One gray eyebrow raised behind her smeary spectacles. She pushed open the secret door behind the sheet. On the other side of it was a set of steps leading down into a passageway with curved, corrugated iron overhead. It had once been a wartime bomb shelter … but now it was a passage to something far more extraordinary—Petty’s secret underground laboratory.

  They followed her much more eagerly than they might have done a few weeks ago. Petty had a habit of tricking them into helping with her research—a habit which had nearly gotten them killed more times than they could count. But now that they’d discovered the REPTOSWITCH formula and had moved up the food chain a bit, the idea of being S.W.I.T.C.H.ed had become more exciting than scary.

  The laboratory was filled with peculiar things. Various sinister-looking liquids in bottles sat on a long workbench. Shelves held books, bottles, and a cage of mice. Odd gadgets were lying around. And a computer glowed in a small booth in one corner. In the middle of the room was a rectangular se
e-through plastic tent—the main S.W.I.T.C.H.ing zone where Petty could spray her subjects (usually Josh and Danny) but keep out of the spray herself.

  “You haven’t started packing everything up yet, then?” Danny said.

  “I beg your pardon?” replied Petty, going into her booth and punching some keys on the computer.

  “You said you were going to move away because you were being spied on, remember?” Danny said. “After you turned us into lizards—after your kitchen window got broken.”

  “I am quite aware of what I said,” snapped Petty.

  “And I meant it … at the time. But everything’s been nice and quiet since. So although I am still planning a new, much more secret laboratory, I’m not moving house just yet. That—after all—is exactly what they’ll expect me to do!”

  “Who?” Josh asked. “Who will expect you to?”

  “Well—the spies, of course!” Petty said, with an exasperated tone. “I’ve told you—I’m always being watched!”

  Josh and Danny exchanged looks. A couple of weeks ago they would have rolled their eyes at each other, but on the day that Petty’s window had been broken, it turned out that somebody was watching. Only … they were watching Josh and Danny. And sending them messages … clues … in marbles!

  “Shall we tell her?” muttered Danny.

  Josh shook his head. “Not now. Not until after this S.W.I.T.C.H. We don’t want her going all weird like she did last time.”

  “Now—do you want to go on with this silly conversation? Or do you want to go to C Phase?” Petty asked, emerging from her computer booth with a spray bottle in one hand and a wild look in her eyes. The light from her old PC monitor shone green across one side of her face. She looked like an evil genius on the verge of a dastardly master plan. Then she stoutly farted and muttered “’Scuse me!” It sort of spoiled the effect.

  “What’s C Phase?” Danny asked, waving his hand rapidly in front of his face. “Crocodile Phase? Is it? Is it crocodile S.W.I.T.C.H.?”